About Me

Hi! I’m William “Lee” Dubois (called either Wil or Lee, depending what part of the internet you’re on). I’m a diabetes columnist and the author of four books about diabetes that have collectively won 16 national and international book awards. (Hey, if you can’t brag about yourself on your own blog, where can you??) I have the great good fortune to pen the edgy Dear Abby-style advice column every Saturday at Diabetes Mine; write the Diabetes Simplified column for dLife; and am one of the ShareCare diabetes experts. My work also appears in Diabetic Living and Diabetes Self-Management magazines. In addition to writing, I’ve spent the last half-dozen years running the diabetes education program for a rural non-profit clinic in the mountains of New Mexico. Don’t worry, I’ll get some rest after the cure. LifeAfterDx is my personal home base, where I get to say what and how I feel about diabetes and… you know… life, free from the red pens of editors (all of whom I adore, of course!).

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Intermission

OK, so I know that it is not traditional to have an intermission in the middle of a gun fight, but I was never much for tradition.

This picture of my arm was taken five days after I removed a Navigator sensor. No, it doesn’t hurt as much as it looks like. It hurts more. The other arm is much the same. I had wanted to wear Navigator non-stop for the full run of the shootout, but my body insists otherwise. There is also the fatigue factor of the multiple jobs, long days, and commutes. I’d forgotten how hard it is to post nearly every day.

Not to worry, I’m not throwing in the towel. Just slowing down a bit. We still have much to talk about, but not every day.

I’m also involved in what is turning out to be a fun and exciting project. Red Blood Cell Books has gotten many requests for both Kindle (e-book) and Audio (like books on tape, but higher tech) versions of The Born-Again Diabetic. At first I resisted the e-book, ‘cause I’m a book freak. Books are supposed to have pages and covers and stuff. And important books have hard covers, by God. That said, the message is what matters and I came to realize the e-book folks probably don’t buy real books and vise-a-versa. I gave that project my blessing and it is moving forward with little need for input from me.

The Audio book was trickier and became more interesting. At first I had thought it would just be someone reading the book; but the way I write is designed for reading. It doesn’t always work so well spoken out-loud. As various ideas were kicked around, then kicked some more, it began to dawn on me that this was not just a different way of publishing a book, this was a whole different media.

If we want to use the power of sound as strongly as we’ve used the power of the written word, we’ve got to do things a little differently. Just like turning a novel into a movie requires a screenplay “based on the book by……”; I’m finding that I need to adapt The Born Again Diabetic for it to be as good an audio book as it is a written book. So I guess instead of a screenplay, I’m writing a speakerplay. As you might expect, it will not be what you expect. I’ll keep you up to date, but I’m totally jazzed about this project.

CGM wise in the coming weeks I’ll cover downloads, software, highs & lows, and even a Navigator family photo album. It’s all still coming, the Navigator Experience: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

Actually, I have a kindle, and I am still a real-book freak. In fact, my biggest disappointment is a lot of older books (ie from twenty years ago, not public domain stuff) are not available for the kindle. There are books I love that are falling apart because I reread them every year, and I would pay again to have them on kindle.

I am looking forward to more of the shootout, but jeez, spend some time with your family too. We'll be here ready to read when you have time to post!